


A Little Help

by dfotw



Series: DA Shared Universe [7]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Awkward Conversations, F/M, M/M, Woo-less!Alistair
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-07
Updated: 2015-07-07
Packaged: 2018-04-08 02:32:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,244
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4287378
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dfotw/pseuds/dfotw
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alistair's life is hard, Leliana is not immune to puppy eyes, and inspiration can be found in the unlikeliest places, but what does Wynne's yarn have to do with all of this?</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Little Help

**Author's Note:**

> This is part of the joint Dragon Age universe I have with [yunhaiiro](http://archiveofourown.org/users/yunhaiiro/pseuds/yunhaiiro), set at some unspecified point mid-game.

Leliana looks up when Alistair slumps down at her side.

“Everything,” he announces loudly, “is awful.”

She glances at where the men had gathered for an impromptu drinking party, proposed by Oghren; the dwarves are still going at it, as is Kwerkus, but Zevran seems to have fallen asleep on Kwerkus' shoulder, and Sten left for his tent a while earlier muttering something about dishonourable practices.

Looking back at the dejected Grey Warden by her side, she notices he's clutching something.

“Is that Wynne's yarn?” she asks, leaning in to give it a better look, then backing away hurriedly when the smell of alcohol reaches her.

“Yes,” Alistair admits forlornly. “I wanted to learn to braid, but I can't. Will you teach me?”

Sometimes, Leliana thinks the Maker could have slipped in a warning of the company she was going to keep while following His guidance; it would have been nice to be prepared.

“You want to learn how to make a braid?” she asks, just to be sure.

Alistair nods. He's also pouting, which Leliana thinks it's unfair, because with the exception of Morrigan and perhaps Shale, there is no one in their party who is completely immune to the mabari puppy eyes Alistair seems to deploy sometimes without meaning to.

“... alright,” she concedes, and moves to sit by his side, upwind of the alcohol smell. “You need three strands, like this.”

Even drunk, his fingers quickly get the hang of it, and Leliana sits back to supervise his progress. Perhaps she can teach him four-strand braids next.

“Is this for Malia?” she asks, and he fumbles and almost drops the yarn.

“... what? No, ha ha, why would you think that? She doesn't need anyone braiding her hair, she can do it by herself perfectly well.”

“Well, who else could it be for?”

Alistair doesn't answer, looking with exaggerated concentration at the yarn in his hands.

“Aaaalistaaaaaaair,” singsongs Leliana, leaning down to look at him in the eye. “I can see the back of your neck turning red.”

“It's awful,” he blurts out, and any other man would fling the half-braided yarn away, but Alistair carefully puts it away on top of his pack. “I went out to get more firewood two days ago, when Wynne started going on about heating water to wash the dogs...”

“Yes?” Leliana prompts him.

“... and I was just walking around, not even trying to be quiet, there is no point trying to be quiet in the forest with these boots and an armful of firewood...”

“Alistair,” Leliana interrupts him, for his own good and because she's getting impatient. “What did you see?”

He makes a face, but Leliana can't even start to guess what it's supposed to mean: disgust, wistfulness, surprise, the desire for cheese? She hasn't spent much time studying Alistair, believing him to be far simpler than his colleagues, and perhaps she was wrong.

“Zevran,” he says at last, as if it pains him to admit it. “Kwerkus and Zevran.”

“Ooooooooh!” coos Leliana, clapping her hands happily. “What were they doing? Are you... are you trying to make rope out of yarn, Alistair, because let me tell you, this would not be strong enough...”

“What?” he asks. “Rope? Why...? No! Why would I...? No, don't tell me, please don't tell me, what I'm imagining is bad enough.”

“If not rope, then what?” Leliana asks, still intrigued in spite of there not being rope involved.

“Hewasbraidinghishair.”

She blinks once, then twice. Alistair is blushing as if Malia had started to strip off her clothes in the middle of camp.

“He... I'm guessing that's Kwerkus since he's the one with short hair... was braiding Zevran's hair?” she asks slowly.

He nods, looking miserable. Leliana gives him a look that she knows is full of incomprehension.

“It was cute!” Alistair exclaims at last, throwing up his hands in exasperation when she doesn't magically divine what's going on in his head. “It was damnably cute, alright? It was... intimate, and not in the 'cover your ears in the middle of the night because they're loud' way that we all know them by now. I had to go and hit my head against a tree afterwards to feel manly again.”

Leliana is grinning so hard, and not only because Malia just poked her head out of her own tent at the sound of Alistair's outburst.

“So, you caught Kwerkus braiding Zevran's hair in the forest like the forest spirits some Chantry sisters would suspect them to be, and you thought it was cute, and you were angry about it.” She grins even wider. “And now you want to learn to make braids yourself, why?”

Alistair has slumped back into himself after his outburst, and shrugs weakly at her question.

“I will teach you a four-strand braid,” she bargains.

He perks up somewhat and mutters something.

“What was that?” she asks, moving away a little so he has to speak louder (maybe loud enough that Malia, who is watching them with a hilariously confused expression on her face, can hear him).

“I said, it looked nice,” he says between gritted teeth. “Look, I know I'm not... I'm not a man women would like to spend time with. I can use a sword and shield, and hit things really hard, and I know hundreds of verses of the Chant of Light, but other than that...” He shrugs. “I know that's not what women want in a man. So I thought, the whole braiding hair thing looked nice, perhaps I could learn and...”

Leliana slaps her hand over her mouth to stop herself from cooing out loud. Behind Alistair, she can see the eavesdropping Malia do the exact same thing from the opening to her tent, her face a hilarious combination of touched and amused.

“I'm an idiot, I know,” he sighs, his big shoulders dropping. “I don't know anything about wooing, and I don't know who to ask because everyone in this camp gives awful advice, and she's a lady who probably had tens of knights vying for her hand, and now she's stuck with me, who can't even keep track of his socks let alone do something nice for her...”

“Alistair,” Leliana interrupts with the same stern voice that she used to get the novices to pay attention; thanks to his own Chantry upbringing, he stops babbling at once and turns to her, as obedient as Malia's own mabari warhound. 

Leliana doesn't look over his shoulder, but out of the corner of her eye she can see Malia duck back into her tent, where she will probably grin like a fool for a while then talk herself out of doing anything about Alistair's lovestruck state in the name of responsibility or something equally idiotic. Wynne, Leliana thinks darkly, has a lot to answer for.

“I'll teach you a four-strand braid,” she says to Alistair, and he grins at her so happily that for a moment she understands Malia's predicament. To distract herself, she pulls at the slim braid in her own hair (the braid that Malia herself had done one night, whil they laughed and talked Orlesian fashions by the campfire, she remembers a little wistfully), and snatches the yarn from Alistair's hands. “Alright, you need to start with four strands... and, while you're listening to me, a piece of advice? Try not to walk in on Kwerkus and Zevran again, or odds are you'll see something you will really regret!”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading, feedback is always appreciated!


End file.
